A study led by researchers at the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering provides new insights for developing therapies for muscle disease, injury and atrophy. By studying how different pluripotent stem cell lines build muscle, researchers have for the first time discovered how epigenetic mechanisms can be triggered to accelerate muscle cell growth at different stages of stem cell differentiation. The findings were published Mar. 17 in Science Advances. "Stem cell-based approaches that have the potential to aid muscle regeneration and growth would improve the quality of life for many people, from children ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Pharmacogenomics is a valuable tool for health care providers to help prescribe the right drug for the right patient to enhance efficacy and avoid side effects. A new research paper funded in part by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) shows a clear advantage of genetic testing in helping health care providers choose the appropriate anti-platelet drug. Testing helps determine if a patient carries genetic variants in CYP2C19 that cause loss of its function. These variants interfere with the body's ability to metabolize and activate clopidogrel, an anti-platelet medication. Anti-platelet drugs are given to prevent complications from blood clotting after a procedure to open clogged arteries. These patients can use one of ...

While scientists have known that creatures may adjust the timing of their daily routines based on starvation and predation, these shifts have only previously been measured based on data from a population at a single point in time. Now, using data collected as 71 elephant seals undertook their foraging migrations across the North Pacific Ocean, researchers report a view of how these animals divide their time between light and darkness to optimize tradeoffs between risks and rewards based on 7 months of data per seal, collected between 2004 and 2012. Their findings refute a hypothesis about how seals prioritize feeding. To better understand how seals divide their time between light ...

The giraffe is a truly puzzling animal. With its exceptional anatomy and suite of evolutionary adaptations, the giraffe is an outstanding case of animal evolution and physiology. Now, an international team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Northwestern Polytechnical University in China have produced a high-quality genome from the giraffe and investigated which genes are likely to be responsible for its unique biological features. The extraordinary stature of the giraffe has led to a long list of physiological co-adaptations. The blood pressure of the giraffe, for instance, is twice as high as in humans and ...

Washington, DC-- Algae colonizing dead coral are upending scientists' ability to accurately assess the health of a coral reef community, according to new work from a team of marine science experts led by Carnegie's Manoela Romanó de Orte and Ken Caldeira. Their findings are published in Limnology and Oceanography. Corals are marine invertebrates that build tiny exoskeletons, which accumulate to form giant coral reefs. Widely appreciated for their beauty, these reefs are havens for biodiversity and crucial for the economies of many coastal communities. But they are endangered by ocean warming, seawater ...

Information on individuals' mobility--where they go as measured by their smartphones--has been used widely in devising and evaluating ways to respond to COVID-19, including how to target public health resources. Yet little attention has been paid to how reliable these data are and what sorts of demographic bias they possess. A new study tested the reliability and bias of widely used mobility data, finding that older and non-White voters are less likely to be captured by these data. Allocating public health resources based on such information could cause disproportionate harms to high-risk elderly and minority groups. The study, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Stanford University, appears in the Proceedings of the ...

Oncotarget published "Genomic and neoantigen evolution from primary tumor to first metastases in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma" which reported that prior work has characterized changes in the mutation burden between primary and recurrent tumors; however, little work has characterized the changes in neoantigen evolution. These authors characterized genomic and neoantigen changes between 23 paired primary and recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) tumors. Within these tumors, they identified 6 genes which have predicted neoantigens in 4 or more patients. Within HNSCC tumors examined in this Oncotarget ...

A sustainable, powerful micro-supercapacitor may be on the horizon, thanks to an international collaboration of researchers from Penn State and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. Until now, the high-capacity, fast-charging energy storage devices have been limited by the composition of their electrodes -- the connections responsible for managing the flow of electrons during charging and dispensing energy. Now, researchers have developed a better material to improve connectivity while maintaining recyclability and low cost. ...

(BOSTON) ¬-- Human cells typically transcribe half of their roughly 20,000 genes into RNA molecules at any given time. Just like with proteins, the function of those RNA species not only relies on their abundance but also their precise localization within the 3D space of each cell. Many RNA molecules convey gene information from the cell's nucleus to the protein-synthesizing machinery distributed throughout the cytoplasm (messenger RNAs or mRNAs), others are components of that machinery itself, while still different ones regulate genes and their expression, or have functions that remain to be discovered. Importantly, many diseases including cancer and neurological diseases have signatures that appear as changes in the abundance and distribution of RNAs. To enable the analysis ...

DALLAS - March 17, 2021 - UT Southwestern researchers have identified the structure of a key member of a family of proteins called nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in three different shapes. The work, published online today in Cell, could eventually lead to new pharmaceutical treatments for a large range of diseases or infections including schizophrenia, lung cancer, and even COVID-19. Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors are members of a broader super-family of proteins called Cys-loop receptors that function as ion channels on cell surfaces and are found in the membranes of many cell types. When the right molecule settles ...

From climate change and carbon emissions to biodiversity and global hunger, humanity faces so many challenges that tackling them quickly is a daunting task. One solution that potentially addresses multiple issues could provide the impetus society needs to make significant progress. An international team of 26 authors, including six at UC Santa Barbara, has just published a study in the prestigious journal Nature offering a combined solution to several of humanity's most pressing challenges. It is the most comprehensive assessment to date of where strict ocean protection can contribute ...

BOSTON - There are several effective interventions to reduce the risk of suicide, the tenth-leading cause of death in the United States, but difficulties in identifying people at risk for suicide and concerns about the potentially high costs of suicide-prevention strategies have hampered their wider use. But as researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) demonstrate, statistical suicide risk prevention models could be implemented cost-effectively in U.S. health care systems and might help save many lives each year. By evaluating data on the incidence of suicide and suicide attempts, the costs to society and the health care system of suicide, and the cost and effectiveness of suicide risk-reduction interventions, Eric ...

Increased global temperatures help invasive species establish themselves in ecosystems, new research led by a Swansea University bioscientist has shown. The study, published by the Royal Society, gives an insight into the probable combined effects of species invasions, which are becoming more common, and global warming. Climate warming and biological invasions result in the loss of species. They also alter the structure of ecosystems and the ways in which species interact. While there is already extensive research on how climate change and invasions affect ...

London, UK (17 March 2021)--A new study published in the prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature today offers a combined solution to several of humanity's most pressing challenges. It is the most comprehensive assessment to date of where strict ocean protection can contribute to a more abundant supply of healthy seafood and provide a cheap, natural solution to address climate change--in addition to protecting embattled species and habitats. An international team of 26 authors identified specific areas that, if protected, would safeguard over 80% of the habitats for endangered marine species, and increase fishing catches by more than eight million metric tons. The study is also the first to quantify the potential release of carbon dioxide into the ocean ...

One of the best ways to study human evolution is by comparing us with nonhuman species that, evolutionarily speaking, are closely related to us. That closeness can help scientists narrow down precisely what makes us human, but that scope is so narrow it can also be extremely hard to define. To address this complication, researchers from Stanford University have developed a new technique for comparing genetic differences. Through two separate sets of experiments with this technique, the researchers discovered new genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees. They found a significant ...

Stopping the spread of political misinformation on social media may seem like an impossible task. But a new study co-authored by MIT scholars finds that most people who share false news stories online do so unintentionally, and that their sharing habits can be modified through reminders about accuracy. When such reminders are displayed, it can increase the gap between the percentage of true news stories and false news stories that people share online, as shown in online experiments that the researchers developed. "Getting people to think about accuracy makes them more discerning in their sharing, regardless of ideology," says MIT professor David Rand, co-author of a newly published paper detailing the results. "And it translates ...

Among adults with children living in the home, cannabis use was more common in states with legalized cannabis use, according to a new study by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia Irving Medical Center and the City University of New York. Legalization for recreational and medical use were both linked with significantly higher prevalence of past-month and daily cannabis use. Until now, most tobacco control and harm reduction efforts protecting youth from exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke focused on parental cigarette smoking, ensuring smoke-free homes, and not smoking in the presence of children. The findings are published ...

The future of an equitable and sustainable global ocean, or "Blue Economy," depends on more than the resources available for technological advancement and industry expansion. A recent UBC-led study found that socioeconomic and governance conditions such as national stability, corruption and human rights greatly affect the ability to achieve a Blue Economy. The study, published today in Nature, scored criteria across five global regions: Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania, to identify the areas of investment and research necessary to develop ocean resources in a manner that is consistent with a Blue Economy ethos (socially ...

To observe how a tiny ball of identical cells on its way to becoming a mammalian embryo first attaches to an awaiting uterine wall and then develops into nervous system, heart, stomach and limbs: This has been a highly-sought grail in the field of embryonic development for nearly 100 years. Prof. Jacob Hanna of the Weizmann Institute of Science and his group have now accomplished this feat. The method they created for growing mouse embryos outside the womb during the initial stages after embryo implantation will give researchers an unprecedented tool for understanding the development program encoded in the genes, and it may provide detailed insight into birth and developmental defects as well as those involved ...

Forces acting inside the Earth have been constantly reshaping the continents and ocean basins over millions of years. What Alfred Wegener published as an idea in 1915 has finally been accepted since the 1960s, providing a unifying view about our planet. The fact that the theory of plate tectonics took so long to gain acceptance had two simple reasons. First, the geological formations that are most important for its understanding lie at the bottom of the oceans. Secondly, forces controlling the processes act below the seafloor and are hence hidden from our view. Many details of plate tectonics are therefore still unclear today. Today, ...

Tucson, Ariz. (March 16, 2021) - This week, a new, peer-reviewed scientific study finds that there is far more potential jaguar habitat in the U.S. than was previously thought. Scientists identified an area of more than 20 million acres that could support jaguars in the U.S., 27 times the size of designated critical habitat. The results, published in the journal Oryx, are based on a review of 12 habitat models for jaguars within Arizona and New Mexico, conclusively identifying areas suitable for the recovery of these wild cats. Based on the expanded habitat area, the authors conclude that findings uncover new opportunities for jaguar conservation in North America that ...

Researchers have channeled the universe's earliest light - a relic of the universe's formation known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB) - to solve a missing-matter mystery and learn new things about galaxy formation. Their work could also help us to better understand dark energy and test Einstein's theory of general relativity by providing new details about the rate at which galaxies are moving toward us or away from us. Invisible dark matter and dark energy account for about 95% of the universe's total mass and energy, and the majority of the 5% that is considered ordinary matter is also largely unseen, such as the gases at the outskirts of galaxies that comprise their so-called halos. Most ...

Imagine not a white, but a green Arctic, with woody shrubs as far north as the Canadian coast of the Arctic Ocean. This is what the northernmost region of North America looked like about 125,000 years ago, during the last interglacial period, finds new research from the University of Colorado Boulder. Researchers analyzed plant DNA more than 100,000 years old retrieved from lake sediment in the Arctic (the oldest DNA in lake sediment analyzed in a publication to date) and found evidence of a shrub native to northern Canadian ecosystems 250 miles (400 km) farther north than its current range. As the Arctic warms much ...

An estimated 14,480 new cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year, according to the American Cancer Society. Cases that could be prevented or cured with better education from screening to treatment based on improved provider-patient communication, says a Michigan State University researcher. The issue is particularly acute for Black women, said Sabrina Ford, an associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology within MSU's College of Human Medicine. Ford's research was published ...

Artificial light at night (ALAN) is a major factor in global insect decline. In a paper published today in Insect Conservation and Diversity, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) scientists and partners found that using amber-colored filters to remove the blue spectra of light from "warm white" LED (light-emitting diode) lamps drastically reduces insect attraction to nocturnal lighting in a tropical forest. This is the first study to validate quantitative predictions of how lamp color affects insect attraction and provide clear recommendations to mitigate the negative impacts of ALAN on wildlife in rainforest ecosystems. "While ...